earthly flame; yet mystical conceptions thickly gather round this root-idea; he is fire pervading all nature; and he often becomes supreme, a god of gods.

All this seems natural enough; but one is hardly prepared for the high exaltation to which Soma highly exalted.Soma is raised. Soma is properly the juice of a milky plant (asclepias acida, or sarcostemma viminale), which, when fermented, is intoxicating. The simple-minded Aryas were both astonished and delighted at its effects; they liked it themselves; and they knew nothing more precious to present to their gods. Accordingly, all of these rejoice in it. Indra in particular quaffs it "like a thirsty stag;" and under its exhilarating effects he strides victoriously to battle. Soma itself becomes a god, and a very mighty one; he is even the creator and father of the gods; 3 the king of gods Soma becomes a very mighty god. and men;4 all creatures are in his hand. It is surely extraordinary that the Aryas could apply such hyperbolical laudations to the liquor which they had made to trickle into the vat, and which they knew to be the juice of a plant they had cut down on the mountains and pounded in a mortar; and that intoxication should be confounded with inspiration. Yet of such aberrations we know the human mind is perfectly capable.

We have first referred to Agni and Soma, as being the only divinities of highest rank which still retain Connection with Persian, Greek, and Roman systems.their physical character. The worship paid to them was of great antiquity; for it is also prescribed in the Persian Avesta, and must have been common to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Aryan race before the Hindus entered India. But we can inferentially go still further back and speak of a deity common to the Greeks, Romans, Varuna, the god of heaven. Persians, and Hindus. This deity is Varuna, the most remarkable personality in the Veda. The name, which is etymologically connected with Ουρανος, signifies "the encompasser," and is applied to heaven—especially the all-encompassing, extreme vault of heaven—not the nearer sky, which is the region of cloud and storm. It is in describing The sublimity of the Vedic description of him.Varuna that the Veda rises to the greatest sublimity which it ever reaches. A mysterious presence, a mysterious power, a mysterious knowledge amounting almost to omniscience, are ascribed to Varuna. The winkings of men's eyes are numbered by him. He upholds order, both physical and moral, throughout the universe.

The winds are his breath, the sun his eye, the sky his garment. He rewards the good and punishes the wicked. Yet to the truly penitent he is merciful. It is absolutely confounding to pass from a Contrast with the laudations of Agni and Soma. hymn that celebrates the serene majesty and awful purity of Varuna to one filled with measureless laudations of Soma or Agni. Could conceptions of The loftier conceptions of divinity the earlier. divinity so incongruous co-exist? That they could not spring up in the same mind, or even in the same age, is abundantly manifest. And, as we have mentioned, the loftier conceptions of divinity are unquestionably the earlier. It is vain to speak, as certain writers do, of religion gradually refining itself, as a muddy stream can run itself pure; Hinduism resembles the Ganges, which, when it breaks forth from its mountain cradle at Hardwar, is comparatively pellucid, but, as it rolls on, becomes more and more muddy, discolored, and unclean.5

Various scholars affirm that Varuna, in more ancient pre-Vedic times, held a position still higher than the very high one which he still retains. This is probable; indeed, it is certain that, before later divinities had intruded, he held a place of unrivaled majesty. Indra.But, in the Vedas, Indra is a more conspicuous figure. He corresponds to the Jupiter Pluvius of the Romans. In north-western India, after the burning heat, the annual return of the His achievements.rains was hailed with unspeakable joy; it was like life succeeding death. The clouds that floated up from the ocean were at first thin and light; ah! a hostile demon was in them, carrying off the healing waters and not permitting them to fall; but the thunder-bolt of Indra flashed; the demon was driven away howling, and the emancipated streams refreshed the thirsty earth. Varuna was not indeed dethroned, but he was obscured, by the achievements of the warlike Indra; and the supersensuous, moral conceptions that were connected with the former gradually faded from the minds of the people, and Varuna erelong became quite a subordinate figure in the Pantheon.

Number and relations of deities uncertain. The deities are generally said in the Veda to be "thrice eleven" in number. We also hear of three thousand three hundred and thirty-nine. There is no system, no fixed order in the hierarchy; a deity who in one hymn is quite subordinate becomes in another supreme; almost every god becomes supreme in turn; in one hymn he is the son of some deity and in another that deity's father, and so (if logic ruled) his own grandfather. Every poet exalts his favorite god, till the mind becomes utterly bewildered in tracing the relationships.

We have already spoken of Agni, Varuna, and Indra, as well as Soma. Next to these in importance may come the deities of light, namely, the sun, the dawn, and the two Asvina or beams that accompany the dawn. The winds come next. The earth is a goddess. The waters are goddesses. It is remarkable that the stars are very little mentioned; and the moon holds no distinguished place.

In the religion of the Rig Veda we hardly see fetichism—if by fetichism we mean the Hardly any fetichism in the Rig Veda.worship of small physical objects, such as stones, shells, plants, etc., which are believed to be charged (so to speak) with divinity, though this appears in the fourth Veda—the Atharva. But even in the Rig Veda almost any object that is grand, beneficent, or terrible may be adored; and implements associated with worship are themselves worshiped. Thus, the war-chariot, the plow, the furrow, etc., are prayed to.

A pantheistic conception of nature was also present in the Indian mind Early tendency toward pantheism. from very early times, although its development was later. Even in the earliest hymns any portion of nature with which man is brought into close relation may be adored.6

We must on no account overlook the reverence Reverence of the dead.paid to the dead. The pitris (patres) or fathers are frequently referred to in the Veda. They are clearly